July 7, 2014
Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


Sutton_Janice Fleet Marketing: Understand How to Differeniate Your Value Proposition

This week, fleet mar­ket­ing expert Ed Pierce con­tin­ues his monthly fleet mar­ket­ing series – an exclu­sive in Fleet Man­age­ment Weekly — with his lat­est col­umn: “A Call to Action (for Fleet Providers): Let ‘Con­tent’ Open Doors for You.

Ed begins, “As any great sales per­son will tell you, sales is not about a great prod­uct or ser­vice, it’s about the customer’s per­cep­tion of value. For fleet decision-makers, value is help­ing to max­i­mize the con­tri­bu­tion of his fleet to the company’s strate­gic goals as well as the sav­ings derived from con­trol­ling costs. The more mean­ing­ful the value story, the bet­ter the chance that a fleet ser­vice or prod­uct provider can begin or move along the sales process with a fleet decision-maker.”

Haven’t yet reg­is­tered for the AFLA 2014 Con­fer­ence?  Sep­tem­ber 7–10, M Resort & Spa Casino, Las Vegas. If you get it done by Fri­day, July 11th, you’ll save a cool $115! Great speak­ers, edu­ca­tional ses­sions and plenty of net­work­ing make this event a must-attend for the savvy fleet professional.

Jan­ice Sut­ton
Exec­u­tive Editor

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Haindl_Steve ARI Named to Computerworld’s 2014 List of 100 Best Places to Work in Information Technology

The com­pany is ranked #17 among the other mid­sized com­pa­nies named to the list

ARI® has been named to IDG Computerworld’s Best Places to Work in IT for 2014. This pres­ti­gious annual rank­ing rec­og­nizes those orga­ni­za­tions that offer their IT pro­fes­sion­als the oppor­tu­nity to work on chal­leng­ing projects using the lat­est tech­nolo­gies while also pro­vid­ing sup­port­ive work envi­ron­ments, supe­rior ben­e­fits and com­pet­i­tive compensation.

“We seek to fos­ter an ener­getic work envi­ron­ment that sup­ports inno­va­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion and learn­ing,” said ARI Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent and CIO Steve Haindl. “We are hon­ored to be named to this year’s list and are proud to be rec­og­nized for fos­ter­ing an envi­ron­ment that pro­motes team­work, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, recog­ni­tion and pro­fes­sional development.”

READ MORE


christensen-janis-551

VIDEO: Sharing Best Fleet Practices from Around the Globe

Some very dif­fer­ent, very dis­tinct fleet prac­tices are being put into place in East­ern Europe vs. West­ern Europe — and in the U.S. vs. the rest of the Amer­i­cas. Hear more from Janis Chris­tensen, a highly trusted indus­try expert.

VIDEO: It's Dangerous Out There
vinciguerra-tony
  Safety Focus: Protecting Your Drivers
 

There’s a lot of focus on keep­ing vehi­cles oper­a­tional and dri­vers pro­duc­tive, which is all well and good. But dri­ving is a dan­ger­ous job — and there should be a lot more empha­sis on pro­tect­ing fleet drivers.


Click here to watch video
VIDEO: Less Speeding for Your Fleet
catten-corey
  A 95% Reduction in All Speeding for Your Fleet?
 

A pow­er­ful com­bi­na­tion of in-cab real-time ver­bal men­tor­ing with accu­rate real-time speed limit report­ing can lead to a 95% reduc­tion of all speed­ing in your fleet. And less speed­ing means more safety.


Click here to read more



The Fleet Spot


John Davis MotorWeek’s John Davis Keynoter at AFLA Conference

John Davis has been selected as a speaker for the upcom­ing annual con­fer­ence of the Auto­mo­tive Fleet and Leas­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (AFLA), Sep­tem­ber 7–10, 2014, at the M Resort & Spa Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. John Davis is the Emmy® Award-winning host, exec­u­tive pro­ducer and cre­ator of Motor­Week, television’s longest run­ning auto­mo­tive series.

At the AFLA con­fer­ence, John Davis will focus on inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies of today and the future. After test­ing nearly 150 cars every year, Davis is an expert in all aspects of new cars and related tech­nolo­gies. He will review new tech­nolo­gies in the areas of dri­ver assis­tance, crash avoid­ance and info­tain­ment. Davis will use videos from his many test runs and auto shows to enter­tain the audience.

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NAFA-Logo NAFA Releases New Fleet Information Management Guide

The amount of infor­ma­tion, data, and knowl­edge on tech­nol­ogy and fleet infor­ma­tion man­age­ment sys­tems avail­able is over­whelm­ing. How do you make sense of it all — quickly and with the assur­ance that you are mak­ing the best analy­sis and deci­sions pos­si­ble? How do you become bet­ter versed to speak with the IT, pur­chas­ing, and pro­cure­ment depart­ments, and then report effec­tively to your upper man­age­ment on fleet needs?

Just pub­lished, NAFA’s Fleet Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment Guide pro­vides a thor­ough review of the fun­da­men­tals of fleet infor­ma­tion man­age­ment (includ­ing fleet infor­ma­tion man­age­ment sys­tems, FIMS) and reviews fleet sys­tem selec­tion and tech­nol­ogy options to consider.

READ MORE about the Guide.

NCSFA new logo 2011 2014 NCSFA Awards and Workshop

Nom­i­nate your­self, your orga­ni­za­tion or a fel­low NCSFA mem­ber for one of the fol­low­ing awards.  Award nom­i­na­tions forms are due July 31, 2014.

Fleet Excel­lence Award
Envi­ron­men­tal Lead­er­ship Award
Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice Award

The awards will be pre­sented at our upcom­ing 2014 NCSFA State Fleet Manager’s Workshop.

NCSFA State Fleet Man­agers Work­shop
Octo­ber 7 — 9, 2014
Burling­ton, Vermont

Free Reg­is­tra­tion for Fleet Managers!

Attend the 2nd annual NCSFA State Fleet Manager’s Work­shop, designed exclu­sively for Gov­ern­ment Fleet Man­age­ment Pro­fes­sion­als to be held in beau­ti­ful Burling­ton, Ver­mont on Lake Champlain.

The NCSFA and the State of Ver­mont are co-hosting this three day inten­sive work­shop.  Pre­sen­ters will be state fleet pro­fes­sion­als shar­ing their best prac­tices and pro­gram information.

Fleet Marketing  
Ed Pierce, ItsTheArts.com

As any great sales per­son will tell you, sales is not about a great prod­uct or ser­vice, it’s about the customer’s per­cep­tion of value.

By Ed Pierce, It’sTheArts.com

For fleet decision-makers, value is help­ing to max­i­mize the con­tri­bu­tion of his fleet to the company’s strate­gic goals as well as the sav­ings derived from con­trol­ling costs.

Even if the com­pany has been an indus­try leader for 100 years, insists that every man­ager earn a Six Sigma Mas­ter Black Belt, reg­u­larly wins pres­ti­gious “Best of” awards, and reports fan­tas­ti­cal total cus­tomer sav­ings every quar­ter … even with all of that, it’s impor­tant that you under­stand how to dif­fer­en­ti­ate your value propo­si­tion in terms that are mean­ing­ful to the cus­tomer – because that’s the real key to win­ning and keep­ing business.

As explained in the last col­umn, “earned media oppor­tu­ni­ties” — print and dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing, pub­lic rela­tions, trade shows, direct mail – are impor­tant tac­tics for telling the value story. Yet, many times that story gets lost in trans­la­tion, espe­cially in advertising.

Here are three com­mon exam­ples read­ily iden­ti­fi­able in most trade mag­a­zines rep­re­sent­ing every industry:

1. Smug­ness (The “Top of the Moun­tain” View) – The mes­sage: “We are XYZ com­pany, the indus­try leader, with the best peo­ple, the best ser­vice, and the best technology.”

The Hype: The name says it all! A fleet man­ager can be con­fi­dent that this company’s “star-power” will rub off on him or her. It is the safest bet even with­out sub­stan­tive proof.

2. Prod­uct “Fea­turette” – The mes­sage (an exag­ger­a­tion): “Our G-Wiz gizmo uses a pro­pri­etary motion­less thermo-nuclear gen­er­a­tor that snatches free energy from a vac­uum to deliver pre-real-time data.”

The Hype: Daz­zling prod­uct fea­tures will blind fleet man­agers into think­ing a com­pany has the best prod­uct or ser­vice despite the lack of ben­e­fits or real-world application.

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Fleet Telematics  
Tim Taylor, Telogis

Con­nec­tiv­ity is the eco­nomic and com­mer­cial engine of today

By Tim Tay­lor, Chief Suc­cess Offi­cer at Telogis

The old busi­ness adage “if you can mea­sure it, you can man­age it,” remains true today. But there is a new truth for the mobile enter­prise: if you can con­nect it, you can trans­form it.

If knowl­edge is power, con­nec­tion is empow­er­ment. We can now con­nect cus­tomers, sup­pli­ers, dri­vers and vehi­cles in ways pre­vi­ously impos­si­ble. At a high level, this equates to engaged dri­vers, informed and sat­is­fied cus­tomers and exec­u­tives with the abil­ity to under­stand trends in their busi­ness. On the road, this equates to prac­ti­cal advances such as lower fuel costs, reduced vehi­cle wear and tear, and bet­ter uti­liza­tion of resources and personnel.

Under­stand­ing the con­nec­tions, and how to achieve them, is the charge of every­one who man­ages a mobile enter­prise – from the fleet man­ager up to the CEO. Here we exam­ine ways to get more out of the mobile enter­prise while also evolv­ing the way we inter­face with and serve customers.

READ MORE

 
 



Fleet Trends & Issues


google touchscreenCan Google Design a Car Touchscreen That Isn’t a Dangerous Distraction?

Automak­ers are increas­ingly inte­grat­ing touch­screens into vehicles—to the dis­may of safe-driving advo­cates, who jus­ti­fi­ably fear peo­ple are already too dis­tracted by phone calls and texts while driving.

Tech com­pa­nies are respond­ing by design­ing what they say are safer ways for cus­tomers to stay glued to their favorite apps and online ser­vices behind the wheel.

READ  MORE about Google’s Android Auto solution.

europe wifiStay Connected: Avis Budget Group Rolls Out Mobile Wi-Fi Across Europe

Avis Car Rental and Bud­get Car Rental cus­tomers can now rent portable Wi-Fi devices in twelve Euro­pean coun­tries. The new offer­ing pro­vides cus­tomers with access to 1GB of data per day with­out the fear of incur­ring roam­ing charges when trav­el­ing through­out Europe.

Users can con­nect up to five devices at the same time, includ­ing smart­phones, tablets, lap­tops and other Wi-Fi-enabled gad­gets. The units offer a down­load speed of 21.6 Mbps for a sim­ple, fast and reli­able way to con­duct video con­fer­ences, access doc­u­ments, surf the web, stream movies and access social media sites.

READ MORE

trucking-tracking-devicesChoose the Right Truck Tracking Devices for Your Business Needs

There are many types of GPS track­ing devices, so it is impor­tant to do your home­work to make sure that you are using the right hard­ware for your truck track­ing needs. Based on the types of vehi­cles you have in your fleet, there are a vari­ety of fea­tures that you should look at. GPS Insight offers three dif­fer­ent vehi­cle track­ing devices to obtain the most rel­e­vant information.

READ MORE

Car hackingLondon: Half of All Car Thefts Executed by Hackers

The Lon­don Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police recently reported that half of all car thefts in the city last year were com­mit­ted with­out the tra­di­tional tools of the trade. Rather, the thieves used high-tech devices to exploit a vul­ner­a­bil­ity unique to the newest (and most desir­able) car mod­els: their onboard com­puter sys­tems. The tools to “hack” a car are rel­a­tively cheap, and instruc­tions easy to pro­cure online. They allow thieves to dis­able alarm sys­tems, unlock doors and con­trol the lights, steer­ing, brakes and nav­i­ga­tion system.

Fleet Technology  

By Mike Sheldrick, Senior Editor

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

Buz­zFeed recently ran a cute item: “12 Car Advances That Would’ve Freaked Out Peo­ple in the Eighties.”That might be an exag­ger­a­tion. But astounded and amazed would not.

I remem­ber show­ing Dave Cole, head of the Cen­ter for Auto­mo­tive Research at the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan, an Etak nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem in late ’80s. It included map data and restau­rants for Detroit and Ann Arbor. This was pre-GPS, by the way. “That’s amaz­ing,” he said, as we found a restau­rant (by cui­sine) and quickly cal­cu­lated a route. As a hard-nosed engi­neer and the son of Ed Cole, a for­mer GM pres­i­dent, he was a man not eas­ily impressed. Full dis­clo­sure: a Sil­i­con Graph­ics work­sta­tion was in the trunk. It was early days for nav­i­ga­tion. So early that the neol­o­gism, telem­at­ics, had not even been invented.

Now that telem­at­ics has switched into over­drive, it’s not so hard to imag­ine that many of us will be freaked out in just a few years. In other words, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

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Fleet Education  
Rosen Shingle Creek, Orlando, FL

It is well-known that the fer­vor sur­round­ing the World Cup verges on reli­gious. More than just extra traf­fic in the host coun­try Brazil, nations all over the globe will be expe­ri­enc­ing dras­tic changes in the ebb and flow of the aver­age work day to accom­mo­date view­er­ship of the World Cup matches. Like­wise, fleet man­agers who have global fleet respon­si­bil­i­ties need to know how such a cul­tural phe­nom­e­non affects their work, and that’s what NAFA’s Inter­na­tional Fleet Acad­emy is for.

NAFA’s fourth annual Inter­na­tional Fleet Acad­emy will take place Novem­ber 5–7 at Rosen Shin­gle Creek in Orlando, Florida. This 3-day con­fer­ence was designed specif­i­cally to meet the needs of those who man­age fleets out­side of the United States and Canada.

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Driving the Global Fleet  

Accord­ing to Tele­fon­ica, the Latin Amer­i­can mar­ket is evolv­ing from security-focused telem­at­ics to optimization-focused telematics.

It points out that fleet man­age­ment is cru­cial to reduce fleet oper­a­tional costs and improve com­pany rev­enue thanks to pro­duc­tiv­ity improve­ment. And it points to areas such as cost reduc­tion through fuel reduc­tion, fewer acci­dents and min­i­miz­ing idling time among others.

READ MORE





Fleet Management Resources 
AmeriFleet
Offering a nationwide vehicle delivery and relocation service; serving the corporate and commercial fleet industry.
LeasePlan
LeasePlan is the world's leading high-touch service provider for vehicle leasing and fleet management.
PHH
Customizing global fleet management to achieve your goals.
ARI
Driven fleet professionals. Driving results.
NAFA
NAFA is the association for the diverse vehicle fleet management profession regardless of organizational type, geographic location, or fleet composition.
The CEI Group Inc.
North America's largest accident management and fleet driver safety company.
GPS Insight
GPS Insight offers GPS tracking solutions to meet your organization's unique requirements and challenges.
PARS
PARS' mission is to provide you with high-quality service at competitive prices for all of your transportation needs.